"Loy Krathong is held on the full moon of the 12th month in the traditional Thai lunar calendar. In the western calendar this usually falls in November. "Loi" means "to float". "Krathong" is a raft about a handspan in diameter traditionally made from a section of banana tree trunk (although modern-day versions use specially made bread 'flowers' and may use styrofoam), decorated with elaborately-folded banana leaves, flowers, candles, incense sticks etc. During the night of the full moon, many people will release a small raft like this on a river. Governmental offices, corporations and other organizations also build much bigger and more elaborate rafts, and these are often judged in contests. In addition, fireworks and beauty contests take place during the festival."
I think this was the most magical amazing beautiful thing i have ever seen. it is the coolest holiday. and also the biggest fire hazard i have ever seen - only in thailand! the lantern portion is a bit different than the description above. the festival is to celebrate the end of the rainy season, thank the rain, and to make a wish when you send off your lantern or boat. it was absolutely the clearest night we have had since we have been in thailand, so it was perfect.
we had a vague idea of where to go, up north behind this university. so we just headed that way. we followed a big line of cars and then took a turn to chase down and follow a truck taxi, which turned out to be a good idea. we parked the bike and walked down a little road full of food vendors, lantern vendors, and banna leaf boat vendors (there was a small creek where they did a little boat celebration, but that celebration happens more next week on the big river). there was a parade lineup and tons of people. then the road lead to a big grassy field, with a buddha shrine at the front, and tons of candle sticks in the ground all lined up in a perfect grid. the only thing i can think of to compare it to is a giant 4th of july celebration. it reminded me of being at mercyhurst (for all you erie-ites) because of the huge amount of people all sitting on the lawn waiting for lights in the sky. they asked everyone to wait until the cue to send their lanterns off, but from the moment we got there we started to see lanterns off in the distance, first only 3, then 10, 20. we were inpressed with this and the festival hadnt even started yet!
the night started out with a small parade that went up to the shrine. then there was a buddhist ceremony where all these monks were up in the front and they did many prayers and chants. it was really interesting and peaceful and everyone in the crowd was chanting too.
after all the college age girls in charge had properly doused the candles in lighter fluid, there was a candle lighting ceremony. let the flames begin!!! beautiful, magical, chaos. let me explain these lanterns to you. they are made from a bamboo or wooden hoop that varies in size from 2 feet in diameter to 4 feet. in the hoop there are 4 wires all pointing toward the center that are tied to a donut like thing made of coconut covered in wax. this is the part you light on fire. then the whole lantern is made of paper and is shaped like a big cylinder. it is made of several square sheets of tissue like paper glued together, fragile yet sturdy. the pink thing is the waxy coconut. ours was the small size.
so once the candles were lit, the lantern lighting started on the far side of the field and it seemed like everyone on our side was waiting. oh my god soooooo amazing. you hold up your lantern over the candle flame until your coconut catches. then you have to hold up the paper until the hot air inflates it enough to hold its own weight. then eventually the thing takes off! they all started going! so many little orange fireflies in the sky. then the chaos started. some lanterns got stuck in the trees! they would either escape eventually or just catch on fire! and sometimes catch the tree on fire a little too! then it got really nuts because some people attached fireworks to their lantern so that when it floated up it would literally be raining fire! and sometime these got stuck in trees too. oh my the most amazing fire hazard i have ever seen! then in addition to lanterns and fireworks on lanterns there were random fireworks going off everywhere! some big, some loud, some really really big. and with no organization at all. wow.
so then the lighting moved to our side of the field. chris was off taking pictures and it was me, luke, and natalie with our two lanterns. the one luke and i got was the small size, so we lit it ourselves while natalie took pictures. even though it was small we almost caught it on fire since we didnt know what were were doing! another group of white kids near us caught theirs on fire! such chaos. so then we get it inflated and everything and we are just balancing it to try and get it to fly. it finally flies away but goes sideways instead of up! a flaming coconut heading for people's heads! luckily someone caught it and held it up until it could properly float away, so our wish could come true!
meanwhile, these thai ladies next to us were in a conundrum. their coconut wick wire had gotten tangled into the candle holder! it was on fire and hot so they were trying to knock them apart with shoes and other objects, to no avail. they ended up having to ditch it and stomp out the fire because it was too heavy to send it up with the candle.
then we worked on natalie's lantern. she got the big one and this was more tricky. the three of us were holding it in as many areas as we could to try and keep it out of the fire. luckily, two thai ladies that had a great technique came to our rescue! we most definitely would have caught it on fire without them! we shook it and tapped it to keep it inflated and away from the flame. it was almost 5 feet tall inflated! it worked!!!!! so amazing!! we just sat back and watched the beautiful amazingness for a while longer. our neighbors were experts and this is the big size.
then we heard there were some banana boats on the creek, so we went to check it out. it was not nearly as exciting as the lanterns, but it things were dying down so we decided to leave. it was pretty chaotic trying to get out of a place with so many people, but having a motorbike instead of a car makes it much easier.
i think that may have been the most magical thing i have ever seen. i am going to try and get a couple small lanterns to bring home so we can have a demonstration.
1 comment:
You're right. It's so beautiful. Very magical.
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